Data driven decision making is key to effective governance: Neeta Verma, DG, NIC

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“I truly believe that Data driven decision making will soon be adopted by various government departments. When analytics is applied to these data it will helps them in bringing new insights essential for taking strategic decisions,” says Neeta Verma, DG, National Informatics Centre, in an exclusive interview with EC’s Ankush Kumar

Edited Excerpts :

What has been the role of the NIC in setting up a robust ICT infrastructure in India?

NIC has set up state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure consisting of National and State Data Centres to manage the information systems and websites of central ministries/ departments, disaster recovery centres, video conferencing, last mile connectivity, Intranet, network operations facility to manage heterogeneous networks spread across central government, states and various districts. We have set up a National Knowledge Network (NKN) to connect institutions and organizations carrying out research and development, higher education and governance with much higher speed. Further, state government secretariats are connected to the central government by very high speed links on Optical Fibre Cable (OFC). Districts are connected to respective state capitals through leased lines. Various initiatives like Government eProcurement System(GePNIC), Office Management Software (eOffice), Hospital Management System (eHospital), Government Financial Accounting Information System (eLekha), etc. have been taken up which are replicable in various government organizations.

How is NIC’s Cloud being adopted by various government departments and what are some of the benefits derived from it?

With cloud computing, we have brought efficiency in terms of utilization of services, storage, pooling etc. NIC’s national cloud enables provisioning of ICT Infrastructure in an optimal manner. Government projects can go live in a month at a minimal cost as there is no need for procurement of infrastructure. Cloud also offers the facility to scale up resources at a short notice to cater to peaks in demand of any service. The services have resulted in savings in terms of money and time to go live for a number of critical projects. Digital India initiatives including Digital Locker, Scholarships, MyGov, eHospital are powered through NIC National Cloud Services. Presently there are over 300 government users with 6000 virtual servers allocated.

What are some of the high impact projects that are being initiated by NIC in recent times?

If I had to highlight a few of the high impact projects in recent times, then I can say that ‘Treasury Computerization’ is one of them. Earlier, the treasury used to work manually but later it switched over to computerized systems. The software has been provided by NIC. The main feature of this software is to control over the budget like plan, non plan, and centrally sponsored schemes. Now all the reports are generated through the computer. The main objective of the treasury for switching over to computerization is to bring in transparency. The receipts and payments of accounts are also prepared through the computer. Computerization of accounts helps in challan, vouchers, compiled accounts, inward / outward settlements accounts and adjustments etc. We have also developed IVFI application for foreigners seeking Indian VISA.

Our applications on Agriculture Market Pricing have been really helpful to farmers for selling their crops on market price and in knowing the actual prevailing rates on a real time basis. Another innovative project is Jeevan Pramaan – a biometric enabled digital service for pensioners. Pensioners of central government, state government or any other government organization can take benefit of this facility without being physically present in front of the certification authority. More than one crore families in India can be classified as pensioner families, where the pension disbursed by the various government bodies forms the basis for their income and sustainability.

e-Hospital is another very highly recognized web based solution developed by NIC using free open source software for managing healthcare service delivery in public hospitals in India. It is a hospital management system with workflow based ICT solution for hospitals specifically in government sector. This is a generic software which covers major functional areas like patient care, laboratory services, work flow based document/information exchange, human resource and medical records management of a hospital.

How is NIC’s eProcurement solution being used by the Government?

Government eProcurement Solution of NIC (GePNIC) is again a generic software which can be directly used by any government department. The Central Public Procurement Portal launched as per the direction of Department of Expenditure is an instance of GePNIC available for all central government departments and organizations. The portal can be used for all kinds of procurement activities such as goods, services and works. It aims at enhancing transparency in all activities relating to tendering process and non-discrimination amongst bidders. It enables free access to tender documents, clarifications, secure online bid submission and access to bid opening event to all, from any place on 24×7 bases.

How is the eOffice initiative helping the Government in serving the citizens in a better manner?

The e-Office is a cloud based service delivery model adopted by 180 central government offices and 69 state government and district offices. It aims at increasing the usage of work flow and rule based file routing, quick search and retrieval of files and office orders, digital signatures for authentication, forms and reporting components. The e-Office framework presently consists of e-File, e-Leave, e-Tout, Knowledge Management System, Personnel Information System, Collaboration & Messaging Systems. e-Office is not merely an initiative for office automation but also a highly citizen oriented reform. As a result of e-Office, the offices would have less paper work, and the ambiance of the office will substantially improve. The delays in the movement of papers and files will be greatly reduced. The common citizen will get much better services from government departments, and will also find the atmosphere pleasing and welcoming.

Are there any solutions developed by NIC for serving youth?

The National Scholarship portal is an integrated e-Governance portal for the automation, streamlining and effective management of processes related to application receipt, processing, sanction and disbursal of various scholarships to students. This initiative is aimed to facilitate faster and efficient disposal of scholarship applications and timely payment of the scholarships to the students directly into their bank accounts, through the process of DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer). This is a single portal where children are able to apply to all government schemes. We are planning to launch an updated version of NSP 2.0 in July this year.

The use of analytics has been seen as a huge opportunity for the Government. What are the areas that you see foresee analytics to be significantly useful?

To tap the analytics momentum, India now needs to build a sustainable analytics eco-system that brings in strong partnership across the industry players, government, and academia. Big Data and analytics offer tremendous untapped potential to drive big business outcomes. For organizations to leverage India as a global analytics hub, NIC can be one of the key levers to move their analytics maturity curve. Apart from businesses, government also collects and generates huge amount of data from various sectors of development in the process of their day-to-day functioning. This data can be traffic data, weather data, tourism data, statistics, public sector budgeting, performance related data and all kinds of data related to policies and inspection. I truly believe that data driven decision making will soon be adopted by various government departments. When analytics is applied to this data, it will help them in bringing new insights that are essential for taking strategic decisions. The government has already rolled finance analytics to access large spends and monitor all types of transactions. Analytics will also be immensely valuable for the transport sector. The vehicle registration data is huge and soon the government will use analytics to churn valuable information from it.

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